Luis: Hello, BlizzCon. My name is Luis Barriga -- game director for Diablo 4.

Tiffani: My name is Tiffani Wat -- senior producer on Diablo 4.

John: My name is John Mueller -- art director on Diablo 4. Wow. What's up? We are here.

Luis: We can finally say it.

John: I know, right?

Tiffani: We can finally talk about Diablo 4.

John: Yea, it's been a long time.

Luis: Can we just take a minute to just recognize how stacked this BlizzCon is? Overwatch 2, Shadowlands, Battlegrounds, Diablo 4. I am kinda jealous of you, guys. For sure.

BlizzCon 2019 Diablo IV: Unveiled Panel Transcript

John: Yes. It is just amazing to be here with all of you to share this. I mean, this is I think for us on the Dev team we have been working on this for a while; and so finally to be able to be here with all of you is super meaningful for us. So... Luis, a lot of stuff is going down since Diablo III.

Luis: That's right.

John: ... and before we get into it, we have a ton of stuff; but you are going to set the stage for us a little bit.

Luis: That's right. Let's set the stage a little bit. Alright. Diablo 4 takes place decades after the events of Reaper of Souls. The Malthael's plans were foiled. The angel of death exacted a terrible toll on humanity; and Sanctuary has suffered great devastation. Entire populations decimated. Cities ravaged. Heaven itself suffered great, great losses causing them to shatter their gates--

John: That's terrible.

Luis: --and you can imagine what that does to people. Religious schisms, famine, war... basically, humanity left to our own devices; and we know how well we do on our own.

John: Not so good.

Luis: Ok. So it is against this backdrop of despair that Lilith returns, and that is when those events in the cinematic you guys witnessed happens.

Luis: This is important, because in the mythos of Sanctuary, Lilith is the mother of Humanity. Lilith represents that demonic half that all have in our hearts. In that mythos, she and the angel Inarius, along with other rebel angels and rebel demons tired of this endless eternal conflict created a world that would be free of conflict, called Sanctuary; and along with that, they created the first mortals. That's the legend. That's what we heard. The scary part about that is, she knows our hearts. She knows what motivates us, and manipulate us.

The other scary part of that is she is Mephisto's daughter. So she represents a link to an even greater threat: the Greater Evils. So even though she has been summoned for reasons we are not ready to divulge quite yet, we know it can't be good; and with Heaven having closed out their gates, there is no one to answer our prayers.

Even the Horadrim are but mad old men talking to themselves, talking to graves, clutching their bottles as hard as they want to clutch their swords.

John: Yea, we can identify with that I think.

Luis: Amen. Alright. That is the stage upon which Diablo IV is set, but let's talk a little bit more about Diablo IV. Help us out, Tiffani.

NEXT: What is Diablo IV?

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WHAT IS DIABLO IV?

Tiffani: Alright, guys. We are going to go into a journey together; but before that, let's take a look at what Diablo IV is. So Diablo IV is a Classic Isometric ARPG.

John: Surprise! That classic camera.

Tiffani: It is going to feature a dark, non-linear campaign.

Luis: -- and we aren't going to spoil any of the details about the campaign today, but you will get to meet some of the folks in charge of it, including our new creative director Sebastian Stepien (Cyberpunk 2077).

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Tiffani: It will be a shared open world with 5 distinct, contiguous regions.

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John: You will be able to go from the tip of Scosglen, all the way down to Kehjistan.

Luis: With Weather, and day/night cycles.

Tiffani: There are hundreds of dungeons to explore, and hundreds of Legendaries to find and equip.

John: Did you see the Legendaries in the dark gallery?

[gallery link="file" size="large" ids="43734,43735,43736"]

Tiffani: You should check them out. Alright, there are 5 powerful classes. Three that we announced today, and are playable in the demo: the Sorceress, the Barbarian, and the Druid; and it is being developed simultaneously for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

John: So like Tiffani said, we are starting a journey together. You may recall in the opening ceremonies, Luis said Diablo IV is about world, legacy, and darkness. Who wants to talk about darkness?

(The audience cheers: Yeah!)

John: At the highest level, what this means is that when you play Diablo IV, everything you will see and experience will feel immersive and faithful to the legacy of what we love about Diablo. How does that sound? Alright, I want to give you an idea of what we mean when we say that you might wonder... you know: Is it Mature themes: is it blood? Is it gore? There is a bit of gore in that trailer. Right? Just a little bit? -- and, you know, is it the music? It is all of these things; and what we'd like to say is that the totality of that tone that creates that experience that we all know and love; and I think -- like, you know, the Butcher's Pit in Diablo 1, you open that door and everything seems fine; and then it goes horribly wrong. Right?

Bodies eviscerated. This crazy guy coming at you with a butcher's knife; and then in our trailer you saw that as well. It's like everything was fine until they opened that door. No!!! Doors are bad. So this is what we are really excited about. It is that contrast. We want to create that sense of space that we are all really excited to explore.

So here is how this idea affects our heroes. We are taking a more grounded approach presenting the World of Sanctuary. You can really see in this piece that it is everything from the pallete, the design of the armor, to the design of the weapons, to how we treat magic; and the classes: you see the druid, the barbarian, the sorceress engaged in combat with monsters from different realms around Sanctuary; and this piece kinda evokes that tone, and that feeling that we are after; and it really affects all things in the world.

So how does this tone affects the world of Sanctuary? We have this vast open world, and we want to immerse you into that medieval apocalyptic demonic version of Sanctuary like never before. The moments of contrast that you will be experiencing in today's demo are areas like Domhainnes Tunnels, the Drowned Caverns, and the Hangman trees at the south, which is one of my personal favorites; and then Killer farm, which kinda evokes this Diablo 1 vibes like the art used to build that... it was so exciting to put that in the demo.

Luis: Straight inspiration.

John: Yea. These are all areas that remind us that we are on the world of Diablo, and what we mean when we talk about return to darkness.

Luis: But it is not just present in the art, this darkness. It's in the world, our gameplay, and the stories we tell.

So what we mean by that is our world is medieval ARPG, but rather than being inspired by high fantasy, we are inspired by the occult: the demonic and biblical themes. What we mean by gameplay is that even making a very dark moody world, if we create the sort of overpowered characters with really over the top effects, we know that we are going to undermine the sense of darkness. We want to make sure that we keep that in check; and then with stories, you heard me talk about how victories aren't clean, or guaranteed.

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This means that sometimes, evil wins. After all, this is the IP where you are sent to save the child Albrecht in the first Diablo. And guess what? There is no saving him. This is the franchise where even when you kill the Lord of Terror himself, it is not enough that you have got to risk your own mortal soul to try to contain him, and just fence evil off for one more day.

The entirety of Diablo II was predicated upon being a day late and a dollar short; and we basically want to encapsulate that feeling, and put it in a bottle, and just create a whole world with that sense. So, yea. It is in the art, it is in the gameplay, it is in the world and in the stories that we tell.

Tiffani: But it is not just the darkness of the previous Diablo games that have influenced us. Every Diablo game has added great new gameplay features to the series; and we are using all of these as inspiration for Diablo IV. We are taking some of our and your favorite features in past Diablo games, and bringing them into Diablo IV. We have updated their design, their look, their feel using our brand-new engine; and all the lessons that Blizzard has learned over the years.

So nowhere has it has [inaudible /too fast] as with our classes, so it starts with this campfire, right here. This pays homage to the classic campfire from Diablo II; and this is one of my favorite parts of the demo and the game. So, John. What was your team's inspiration when tackling the character select screen.

John: Yea. You know, I think when we started the characters select screen it was actually a short conversation about what we wanted to do with that. It was like: "we have a few ideas," but the campfire... it spoke to us, it really showed off the new engine in a really cool way. It was really awesome to see the classes with the high-fidelity that we had added into our characters with Diablo IV. Yea, it was so much fun.

Tiffani: Go ahead, Luis.

Luis: I was just going to say I like that we left a little room in there; and I also love how we don't put any text there telling you: "Oh, this Barbarian is this and that" and (you know) the Barbarian is the one that broods in the corner with a bunch of swords; the druid is the guy that has some good boy standing by him (the companion); and the Sorceress conjures the campfire. It's so great.

John: Yea, we wanted these classes to just speak clear without any text, and I think we all know who these classes are at this point. So, yea.

NEXT: CLASSES

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DIABLO IV CLASSES

Tiffani: Alright, let's take a closer look at these classes, starting with the Barbarian. There is a reason we keep bringing this class back. The barbarians are the embodiment of visceral, brutal combat that is just so core to Diablo.

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So when reimagining this class for Diablo IV, we drew upon classical barbarian imagery, as well as art from our own past. So one common theme that kept cropping up was the physicality of these warriors, and how armed to the teeth they are with weaponry. Every time you take a look at a picture of a Barbarian, they've got axes, swords, polearms -- as many weapons as they can carry. We really love this fantasy for this class; and with that in mind, we've added the arsenal system. So, the barbarians will have four weapon slots, and will be able to use both one-handed and two-handed weapons in the same build, and I'm so excited about this level of customization, and being able to equip four legendary items at the same time.

John: Yeah, it's pretty much every Barbarian's fantasy to finally see that Arsenal that you're used to seeing unlike those classic barbarian paintings come to life.

Tiffani: So, actually to be able to assign items to each skill slot to add yet another layer of a customization, and depending on what skill you use the Barbarian will automatically pull out the weapon that he or she needs. So combat will continue to be seamless on the battlefield. We're carrying forward Fury to power the aggressive physical fast-paced attacks of the Barbarian, but they'll also continue to pull the ancient magic of their ancestors to give them all that strength and combat on the battlefield. So, let's take a look at the barbarian in action and some art.

John: I love this piece one of my favorites.

Luis: Some of the legendary sets we've found that works.

Tiffani: Built on blood.

John: This guy is ready for action.

Tiffani: Alright, wait for it you know what he's gonna do.

John: It’s like almost a hammer down moment.

Luis: It’s a Barbarian player. I love that. The team's taking some of the things that were formerly elemental magic and now it's just more blood.

John: Yeah, I think this is like every Barbarian paint that I grew up with come to life, where it's just like wading into the crowd of enemies and just wreaking havoc.

Tiffani: Ok, lets look at our next class.

Luis: Next up we have the Druid. Who got to play a druid in Diablo II? Any wild Druid players? I think you guys are gonna like this guy; but first I don't know if this little tidbit I'm gonna give you is going to reaffirm your faith in us, or shake your faith in us; but we got something to share with you.

The Druid was not part of our really original lineup for Diablo IV. I know, my bad. That lasted about a day; and basically one of our artists did this amazing piece of art, and then we went from like I don't know, Druid maybe we got--- no, we're making a Druid, 100% starting tomorrow, right now.

John: The power of art.

Luis: It's so great. It is a theme. The art inspires the design in this game. You see it with the Arsenal system, you see it with the Druid. So one of the things that we said it's like: "Hey, we love the idea of the Druid, how do we move it forward?"

One of the things that we did is we took some of that fire magic that didn't feel like it met the fantasy of being someone in tune with nature, and we replaced it with storm magic and earth magic; and we feel pretty great about that; and we have it in the demo if you guys want to check it out.

We kept this nick-nack nature companions like the wolves, the ravens, the vines, all of that. Then the thing that we feel is the kind of special sauce is, he's always been able to be this master shapeshifter. You can turn into werebear, he can turn to a werewolf, and (you know) it's pretty cool. You'd be a bear and spam some shockwave. That was pretty awesome.

So, but we decided to move that forward in Diablo IV, and now we have something we call seamless shapeshifting. What that means if you truly want to embrace the hybrid nature of the class, you can start an attack in one form, and you'll begin animating as smooth and fluid as the Diablo III combat you've enjoyed so far. We're leveling that up.

So mid-swing, you will transform into the correct form, so you'll press a button for a werewolf attack, you'll start animating caster form, finish it in werewolf form. If you're surrounded by enemies you can conjure up a boulder, push those enemies away, and then turn back into a werebear and charge into them. It's really, really cool. I really hope you guys have the time to play the demo, check out the Druid, but enough of me talking. Let's see that stuff in action.

Tiffani: That guy is not having a good day.

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Luis: I love these sets.

John: Yeah, this was one of our first pieces we did for him when we were trying to figure out what was gonna be so cool about them.

Luis: Crazy mountain man.

Tiffani: Alright, look at those good boys.

Luis: Send your pets in, summon up some storm magic. Don't worry if (you know) you've got a preferred form. You can just assign all your buttons to that form and be a bear all the time if that’s your fancy.

John: And of course, Cataclysm just wrecks the battlefield.

Luis: Master of nature magic right there.

John: Yeah, you made a good choice about that art. I guess. They worked out. Alright, the Sorceress, the Sorcerer is back. How exciting is that?

Tiffani: I guess

John: Yeah, she is elemental carnage on the battlefield whether it's chilling enemies and smashing them with a fireball; or transforming into a chaotic ball of lightning, and just completely destroying the battlefield teleporting around and just wreaking havoc.

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She is an unstoppable wrecking machine wading through the hordes of monsters with the power of elemental magic. In a dark oppressive world of Sanctuary, the sorcerer lights up our dungeons. Like when we say we're returning to darkness, our dungeons are really dark, and the sorceress lights it up in an amazing fantastic way with our new engine and our new tech; and we're gonna take a look right now.

Luis: That guy is about to get a fireball to the head.

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John: He's definitely questioning his life choices.

Luis: Pentagrams, of course

John: Yeah. That classic D2 sorceress.

Luis: I love that in addition to bringing the light show, gameplay-wise you feel like a dungeon boss when you play a sorceress. She has basically control over the battlefield with abilities like Blizzard, like Firewall that basically make you feel like you are doing area of denial attack on enemies. Really cool.

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NEXT: CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

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CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

John: Super exciting. Alright. So how you look in a game like Diablo as you're laying waste to the hordes of Hell? It's pretty important. Don't you think? you guys want more options for customization than you've had in the past? Of course, and we agree; and we're offering levels of customization in Diablo IV, more than we've ever had before; and allow you to make that Barbarian of your dreams (that drove your dreams), and this is just a few options that we have here today in our demo to kind of show you what the appearances look like.

These are some concepts of also where we're going with this, we really want to give you like kind of like a template, and you can build on that fantasy however you want. So if you want to customize the hair, the skin, the jewelry, the scars, the tattoos, those kinds of things; and we really wanted it like, we have a lot of these that we're planning; and it's something we're really excited about. We think you guys will like it.

Luis: Aright, but it's not just the appearance. The customization is at the core of Diablo; and what I mean with that is gameplay customization, and customization is back with a vengeance.

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(Audience becomes excited)

We're bringing back some ideas and new ideas, so we've become inspired from various games. So, we have a super happy. We're a little nervous like: "Yeah, they gonna like it."

We have a trifecta of customization options with talent trees, with skill ranks, and with runewords.

(Audience goes nuts)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Check out all the Barbarian, Druid, and Sorceress skills and talent trees in this menu; then come back to the transcript. Make sure to "Open in New Tab."

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Runewords, especially, we've taken inspiration from Diablo II, and given it a fresh new interpretation. You'll get to hear all about it in our systems and feature panel tomorrow or if you check it out on the demo; but the way that it works, it's super exciting. That's no longer like a secret recipe, but a little bit more freeform with triggers and effects.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I took this from one of the Diablo IV demo gameplay livestreams:

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We're very excited to see the combinations that you come up with; but the message that we want to bring to you today is we want you to play the build that's inside your head; not the build that I designed for you; but the build that you want to play; because we realized that (you know) your idea of a frost sorceress might be different than mine or John's.

Another thing that's new to Diablo IV is the sense of world. It's a very big difference in how we've approached it from different installments. We're coming at it from two angles: the fantasy and the gameplay. On the fantasy side, we knew we had kind of planted these seeds of the druid. We told you that he came from Scosglen, and we had shown little corners of Sanctuary that we knew you guys wanted to explore; but then on the gameplay side, we kept making a more or less linear game with Diablo before: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3; and you guys kept wanting to approach it in a more open way.

Jumping around, killing stuff, and not following the rules. So, with Reaper of Souls we created Adventure Mode to kind of give you guys a taste of that openness; and it was really transformative. That was a moment where we learned a lot about how the game could be played, and where we saw how you guys were approaching Diablo.

So based on those learnings, we are making Diablo IV open from the ground up. We're making an open-world with a non-linear campaign so that you can be in charge of how you decide to level. If you're the type of player that wants to take breaks between the story, and do some of the repeatable contents, explore a little bit, do side content, stuff like that... great.

If you're the type of player that wants to experience the story uninterrupted, you can still do that. So, not only can you customize who you character is, you can customize their experience in Sanctuary.

NEXT: THE WORLD

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THE WORLD

John: Yeah, the world. This is something we're so excited about. I think when the concept team got ahold of this (you know), this idea of this vast open world was really exciting; and what we would present to the players. Diablo levels have always felt a little bit like, you know quarters; or you know I kind of skirt around the edges and work my way in towards the middle, but there was always that border that was a little frustrating; and I think like for this game those borders are gone; and so on the concept team when we were kind of imagining what this space would look like, we had to imagine what that would be.

So, what if the region itself was 10 or 20 times larger than any previous Diablo region? So big that mounts might actually be required across these distances. There's gonna be 5 connected regions to explore with distinct geological and unique biomes.

We will have the icy mountains of Fractured Peaks. We're really excited about this one. It's beautiful. We all have the dark forests of Scosglen; and we're going to have the desolate grasslands of Dry Steppes; sprawling deserts of Kehjistan. Of course, we're going to go back to Kazakhstan. We're really excited about this; and then the foul swamps of Hawezar to explore.

Tiffani: Why can’t they be regular swamps?

John: Because they need to be foul. This is super-important foul. Foul swamps. Sounds pretty dark, right?

Tiffani: So, the world is also how you engage with other players in Diablo IV. So we'll have social hubs in major towns. This is one from our demo. This is Corebach.

In these towns not only is this where you pick up quests and talk to NPCs, you can also trade, ask someone about their gear, maybe investigate their build, take a look at how they customized their character, or what awesome armor they're wearing. You might even be able to look for a group, and you might be wondering: "Why do I want to look for a group?"

Well, as you're exploring the open world, you'll come across world events, and your Druid here is gonna come up on one in a second; and you may not want to fight these events alone, because they're a little bit tougher experiences. I think it's pretty exciting. I'm gonna wait for this one to pop up. Alright. Here we go. So this was in the game trailer. This is Ashava. This is in our demo. I'm curious how many people Ashava is going to murder this weekend.

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John: Anybody want to venture a guess? I'm guessing thousands? Maybe everybody.

(Audience: Everybody)

John: Everybody. I like that. Everybody here.

Tiffani: Probably everyone who plays the demo is going to die to this. So you can group up with other people, you'll be running around the world, you'll come across other players and they'll be able to help you defeat this demon and get some awesome loot. That's why we fight demons, right? So I know what you're thinking. What if I don't really want to play with other people? Well, there will be areas of Sanctuary where players can opt-in to PvP. So you can just murder them instead.

You'll be able to complete the entirety of Diablo IV without ever necessarily engaging in these social activities. You can continue to crawl dungeons on your own, or form private parties of your own; but I'm really excited about what grouping and trading is going to do to the longevity of this game. The most important thing for me for playing games these days is player stories, and I have so many of my own; and I'm curious do you have any?

Luis: I mean, yeah. I love PvP. Not because I'm a great PvPer. I'm like kind of middle-ing; but it's the sort of thing where I don't remember a lot about other games; but I remember how I lost my hardcore characters in Diablo II. I lost my sorceress. Basically, someone befriended me, we did Baal runs for a couple hours, I'm like... this person is pretty chill. My bags were full after killing Baal. So I went to town, took the town portal back to get the rest of my loot; and I don't know how this person must have been telepathic or something; but they went hostile right as I was loading, I loaded up to like a million firewalls died in like a second. Your deeds will be remembered, and that person really enriched my online experience... I must say.

(Audience laughs)

Tiffani: Luis didn’t realize we had met before.

Luis: I'm not even mad. Maybe in Diablo IV I'll finally get revenge. So...

Tiffani: Alright, well... John and Luis talked about this expansive open world, and there will still be waypoints to travel around, because I think that's really core to the fantasy of Sanctuary with so much world to explore we saw the opportunity to add a new feature, and that is mounts.

So, we took a very Diablo approach to this feature, both thematically from a gameplay perspective. So, taking a look at this concept art right here, you'll be able to swap out the armor pieces, change the saddle, change horse armor, and maybe swap out that Fallen head for a different trophy.

Not only does this add aesthetic customization, but also changes the gameplay. So if you're in PvP, and you're running away from a sorceress that's turned hostile on you, you may want to equip some items that decrease the damage that you take on a mount, or maybe you make your mount go a little bit faster so you can outrun that firewall, or outrun that Blizzard, and keep your ears for another day.

So it's really important that mounts feel grounded in this world. Everything that we add; you'll hear me say it time and time again; for this to feel like a dark grounded world, we want these mounts to feel at home in Sanctuary. John, I saw on your desk, you had this picture of a rainbow unicorn?

John: That is not true. It was on fire. If it was on my desk, it was certainly on fire.

Tiffani: Alright, that's why there's a fire horse there.

John: Or dead; or flayed; or something else.

Tiffani: We'll have demon horses, flayed horses. This horse doesn't even have a face anymore. That feels pretty at home in the world of Sanctuary; and so these are the kinds of mounts that you can expect to ride around>

Because Diablo is an action RPG, we want to get you back into the action as quickly as possible, and we want to do it with some flair. So, we've added dismount abilities. Each class will have class-specific abilities that fit their fantasy perfectly. If you are a sorceress, and you just want to get off your horse like normal, you can still do that; or you can turn into an ice storm and freeze everything in your path. Let's take a look at the Barbarian and the Sorceress, and some of their Mount abilities in action.

Luis: What do you think are they chasing each other or are they friends?

John: I think they're about to kill each other.

Luis: Probably.

Tiffani: Alright, check this out. Combo dismount abilities. I guess they're friends for now.

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Luis: Don't trust them.

NEXT: DUNGEONS

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DUNGEONS

John: Alright. So we've talked a lot about the world above ground, but we all know that really the cool stuff in Diablo happens below ground in dungeons.

You guys wanna hear about dungeons? Alright. Well, we've added-- we have all this cool stuff above ground, but when we say return to darkness that is a literal truth for a lot of our dungeons; and we are crafting some of the darkest, most evil spaces that you have ever explored in a Diablo game to find epic loot. We're gonna show some of those right now. Let's take a look. Those are your people, Luis.

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Luis: I loved the first time I went to a dungeon in Diablo IV, and I realized I was at home was when the corners were dark I'm like: "Oh, this feels so right in a Diablo game," right here, and if you play a class that brings the light show, here's where you see it.

John: Yeah. For sure. When the players are in there, and you have that little pool of light around you in those dark corners, it just feels like home.

Luis: And of course, we should reassure you these are fully randomized. We're building up on our know-how from D3. It’s basically the RNG 2.0. Our dungeons continue to be randomized; and not only that, but we have new features that in tomorrow's panels you'll get to check out.

John: And also, exterior dungeons as well that are randomly generated.

Tiffani: So, there’s one thing I'm not seeing here, John.

John: Really? Did we leave something out?

Tiffani: Where do we usually go in a Diablo game?

John: Where do you guys want to go in Diablo? Yeah, of course we're going to Hell!

Yeah. It wouldn't be Diablo without going to Hell, right? -- and we're doing it, and we're really excited about it. We don't have it here today with us, but I guarantee you in the future when you see it, we're gonna really do it a very strong service. Yeah.

NEXT: MONSTERS

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MONSTERS

Luis: Alright, so what good would all of this world, and all of these dungeons be if we didn't have cool stuff to kill? So, as a former quest designer it really excited me to do a big world RPG in the world of Diablo, and finally get into the backgrounds, the backstories, and how all the pieces fit together -- like the Fallen, for example, in the demonology. How they fit in. They're at the lowest realm of basically that demonic hierarchy.

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All the other demons just crap on them. They get the crumbs of the human remains that are left. Maybe some bones. They just taken all this insane cruelty; and then they just reflect it back into the world. So you have like Fallen Lunatics that are just ready to blow up; and like these wicked weapons with spikes, and they just look like cruel miserable creatures; but it all comes from them, taking all this cruelty in, let's think that.

John: You kind of make me feel bad for the Fallen, and I want to kill these guys and take their stuff.

Luis: Hopefully, not too bad; but think about that next time you're killing Bishbosch or Rakanishu. But it's not just the iconic and genre-defining monsters of Diablo, like the Fallen.

John: We got some new stuff

Luis: We got lots of new stuff; because we're exploring parts of the world that we've never been to. So here's just one example. One taste. This is the Drowned. They are undead that come from the oceans. They're linked to ancient maritime curses, and stuff like that. So as we move forward, we're gonna keep exploring these families; and how they fit into the world; and how they work together as a family. So they have mechanics where they amp each other up, and they're bigger than the sum of their parts.

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John: Yeah, I love the Drowned. I have seen them come out of the coastline, which you'll see in today's demo. It is really striking.

NEXT: LEGENDARY ITEMS

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LEGENDARY ITEMS

Luis: Alright, then what good would all these monsters be if they weren't dropping awesome stuff? So, items are one of the most important elements of Diablo, if not the most important. We're really leaning into legendaries as opening-up build possibilities. We realize that with D3, we maybe emphasized sets a little bit too much; and we want to make sure that we leave room for legendaries moving forward, so that we have build variety, and that we don't overstep on that customization. Sets will continue to be there, but they won't dominate. Even non-legendary affixes will also lean into customization.

We will have affixes that will improve your skill ranks, will have affixes that will improve your passive talent ranks; and we hope that will further differentiate your build from my build; and then also we're just building in our tools, our pipelines, and our know-how; and we're bringing even more legendaries on average over to the table.

John: Yeah, we're making so many legendaries, and these are just a few of them here; and actually, you're gonna get to see something at the show today, which is pretty cool.

Luis: Super excited. That's spike one right there is my favorite.

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Tiffani: How are you supposed to hold that?

Luis: You bleed.

John: It looks like it would give you a tetanus.

Luis: Alright. So there is much, much more to come. A game of this scope takes time. This is a very, very early first step. We're not coming out soon. Not even Blizzard soon. We're just excited to take this first early step in the journey together with you. We have a demo ready for you guys to play back there. We have our first three classes. We're gonna have five when we ship. We also have three dungeons, lots of events -- including the world event that Tiffany described; and a very small sliver of Scosglen -- which in of itself is just a small region of the world.

Please, give us feedback. We want to hear what you like, what you didn't like. Again, this is just the first step in the journey; and then, if you can't be here, if you're watching over the internet at home, we have streams both days. We’ve partnered with streamers where you can go experience the demo vicariously; and then we also have a website live with info, and we're on the hook now with you guys to update that website on a quarterly basis with a weblog to keep you up-to-date as to how we're going in the development.

John: Alright, that's super exciting. So we have so many things for you to see at the show. Luis talked a lot about the demo, I'm gonna talk about stuff beyond the demo. It's crazy. So there is literally a 12-foot-tall Lilith in the front of Hall D.

Tiffani: I can see her.

John: Yeah, I know. I can literally see her from here. It's absolutely crazy. Built by the incredible Steve Wang and his incredible team. We have a slightly smaller version of Lilith crafted by our very talented sculptors in which you will also see at the show. We have brought artifacts from the world of Diablo on display at the dark gallery.

The dark gallery is kind of a first time of doing something like this. We've brought a piece of sanctuary here, filled it with artifacts, some of them are made by our team. We've had some other people chip in, and it's really something pretty extraordinary; and we're excited for you to see it.

We also have the artist Brom here who created the cover to Diablo II, yeah right; and did many beautiful paintings for Diablo III; and he'll be here signing prints; and he painted Lilith. So you can watch, that'll be in the dark gallery. Please, stop by and get a poster signed, nerd out with us about all the things that we're going to be doing in the future; and share your stories.

Tiffani: I'm gonna add one more plug to the dark gallery. It's like a really messed up museum. There's also a cultist sacrifice going on in there. So if you're really big on taking photos, you can go get sacrifice on an altar. Just a suggestion, if you have some free time. Go in to the dark gallery and check out some art. Maybe a good sacrifice.

John: That guy is terrifying

Tiffani: Yeah.

Luis: Send that picture to your friends and relatives. Freak them out a little bit.

John: Yeah. You came to BlizzCon, and you got sacrificed. That's true Diablo fans.

Tiffani: Alright. We touched on a lot of things today, really briefly; but you can find out way more in our other panels this weekend for Diablo IV. So starting off tomorrow morning, there will be a live art demonstration from Diablo for artists if you're interested in seeing how we create character assets for the game. So that's over in the Darkmoon Faire; and that's at 10:00 a.m. on the Epic Stage.

If you're interested in learning more about the systems and features -- because we just touched really lightly on them this morning, if you're interested in learning about the classes, the skills, monsters, and bosses, dungeons, items... check out that Systems and Features panel tomorrow, right here on the stage at 12:15pm.

If you're interested in learning more about the world that we're building, and all the characters and where they're going; and how we even got here -- check out the World & Lore panel also on the stage tomorrow afternoon at 3:15pm; and learn more from our World & Lore team.

Last, but not least; all this beautiful art -- if you want to take a look at that and listen to a multidisciplinary discussion on our approach for returning to darkness in Diablo, come to the art panel with John and some artists. Awesome, awesome artists at the Legendary Stage tomorrow afternoon at 4:15pm.

So, these three ladder panels will have Q&A, so we would love to hear your questions and answer them. We're actually-- you can actually submit a question physically here over at the demo station. There's a little box. You can write your question on a card, and drop it into that box; or if you're watching online you can tweet at us at #D4QA. We'll be going through those questions, picking the best ones, and answering those in our panels.

Luis: Don't be afraid to ask hard questions. I know there's a lot of speculation that like we won't. We will take them. So give us some hard questions.

Alright. So, like we mentioned at the beginning this is a stacked Blizzcon. We realize you had a choice of demos and presentations. We're really, really happy that you came to see us and hear what we had to say and show you. Thank you. We three represent a very, very passionate team; and we want you to know that we have our team staffing the demo area and the dark gallery. That you'll see us wearing the blue shirts. Please, stop by. Talk to them. Let them know what you like, what you didn't like. Share your Diablo stories. Ask them what their favorite class is. Maybe you let them know what classes you like and don't like. We're just super excited to just nerd out with us and finally be able to share what we've been working on with you guys. So thank you on behalf of the entire Diablo team. Once again, thank you all; and we'll see you in Hell.

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BlizzCon 2019 Diablo 4: Unveiled Panel Trans…

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